Former Nazi guard who lived in Sharon, Pa., appeals to board

A former Nazi concentration-camp guard who has lived quietly in western Pennsylvania for more than 50 years took his fight against deportation to the nation’s highest immigration court Thursday, arguing that he shouldn’t be punished because he served in Hitler’s army against his will.

The Board of Immigration Appeals in Falls Church heard the appeal from 88-year-old Anton Geiser of Sharon, Pa., who acknowledges serving in the Nazi SS as a guard in the Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald concentration camps. A federal judge ordered him deported in 2010.

But his lawyer argued that the court should have considered that Geiser was forced to join the SS against his will as a 17-year-old.

Government lawyers argued to uphold the deportation. They said federal law places former Nazis in a harsher immigration category, and no exceptions should be made because of compulsory service.

Zimmerman sues NBC, reporters

ORLANDO, Fla.

George Zimmerman sued NBC on Thursday, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.

The former neighborhood-watch volunteer filed the lawsuit seeking an undisclosed amount of money in Seminole County, outside Orlando. Also named in the complaint were three reporters covering the story for NBC or an NBC-owned television station.

The complaint said the airing of the edited call has inflicted emotional distress on Zimmerman, making him fear for his life and causing him to suffer nausea, insomnia and anxiety.

Death toll from typhoon rises to 420

NEW BATAAN, Philippines

The Philippine government’s geological hazard maps show why this farming community was largely washed away by a strong typhoon: “highly susceptible to flooding and landslides.” That didn’t stop some villagers from rebuilding even with bodies still lying under the mud.

Most of the about 420 people confirmed dead from Typhoon Bopha were killed in the steep valley that includes New Bataan, a town crisscrossed by rivers and cleared from lush hillsides by banana, coconut, cocoa and mango farmers in 1968. Flooding was so widespread here that places people thought were safe, including two emergency shelters, became among the deadliest.